So, the Australian adventure so far...

We flew to Uluru for an overnight stay at the resort about 10 miles from the rock.
Unfortunately we arrived too late to do an afternoon tour but we'd already booked a sunset trip with a romantic meal under the stars which we were looking forward to. We decided to have a look at the rock from one of the lookout points - it's all you can see for miles around

Sadly, it decided to pour down with rain so the sunset trip was cancelled - we went to the office to book on the sunrise tour which left at 4am but it arrived 15 minutes after out airport pickup was due to leave!

I managed to get up at 5am to watch the sunrise but our only view of the rock was from 10 miles away!

To top it all when we got to the airport the flight was delayed!! So, not the most successful trip!

Next stop, Melbourne, where we were met by Carl's very excited mum and phil. They live in a fantastic appartment overlooking the Docklands area of Melbourne. The first couple of days we had lovely hot sunshine so we took full advantage of that. Amanda's sister, Helen, also made an impromptu flight down from Brisbane to see us which was lovely.

We also caught up with Rebecca & Justin - our new friends from Fiji - who soldiered on through hangovers to show us around St Kilda and Port Melbourne

We broke up our time in Melbourne with a few days in Tasmania which was very like the Yorkshire Dales but without 'Ye Olde Tea Shoppe'. Unfortunatly the weather was awful so we were reluctant to get out of the car but we did manage a few (short) walks! We drove around the whole of the island (1,100k) and probably our favourite experience there was the animal conservation park where we got see Tasmanian Devils and hand feed kangaroos and wallabys.

Either side of our visit to Tasmania we went away with Glenda and Phil - first down the Great Ocean Road as far as The 12 Apostles which was excellent. We had a lovely meal in Apollo Bay and saw kangaroos and koalas in their natural habitat. The following weekend we went to Sorrento & Portsea - which is at the end of the bay around Melbourne - for a lovely lunch

Back in Melbourne we had a great time on a Yarra Valley wine tour. We were picked up from the city centre and then chauffured around 5 different wineries, tasted 45 wines and had a lovely lunch - what a hard life!

We left Melbourne on Wednesday 26th Nov and started our drive around the coast. Wilsons Promitory was beautiful and we stopped to let an emu cross the road! We've seen lots of lovely little seaside towns and beautiful beaches along the way.

We stopped overnight in Sydney last night to catch up with Lucie, Mike and their new(ish) baby Nathaniel

We're lacking photos at the moment as my SLR decided to stop working just as we left Melbourne so hopefully we'll get it sorted in Sydney today

Then we're off up the coast to Brisbane to land with Jamie & Helen a week or so early!!!

Oh Ant, to answer your question we both wrote a bit of this one!